If public lands turn private, fences will go up, animal populations will greatly suffer, and access to land that we all own will be gone — likely forever. Congress and the Trump White House are also ignoring the cold, hard fact that our public lands employ 6.1 million people and muster $646 billion for our economy. There’s literally no metric to indicate that selling of land for short-term mineral extraction will ever reach those numbers.

On the eve of the Bears Ears decision, we caught up with Callaghan — a guide, outdoorsman, and activist — to talk about these very issues. His ethos is simple: We need nature and nature needs us. It’s a mantra that keeps him fighting the good fight, at a time when people working on the front lines are more important than ever.

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On average, how much time would you say you spend out in the wild?

A lot of it’s based off where we live. We’re in this very small valley with a very small community in Idaho. It’s about 7,000 feet in elevation. Real steep valley walls and basically the valleys are the only thing that is private, and everything else is public ground.

You can very, very quickly get out. Ease of access is very high. So I’m in a tent probably 50-60 days. Otherwise, I’m outside either on my mountain bike or fishing, skiing, hunting, looking for mushrooms, whatever I can do multiple days a week. So… a lot.